Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition signed by individuals from Wikwemikong First Nation, who see how media concentration and digital convergence have made community TV and media even more important and necessary. They point out that the Broadcasting Act stipulates that community, private, and public broadcasting should complement one another and that CRTC policy states, “the community channel should be primarily of a public service nature, facilitating self-expression through free and open access by members of the community”.
The petitioners are asking the government to enable a network of community-operated media centres. They feel this would ensure the survival of community TV, the availability of local media in areas not served by private or public media, and would give all Canadians access to multi-platform media skills training and content distribution in the digital economy.